Did You Know?
Prithviraj Kapoor would look into a mirror as tall as himself before each shot. When K Asif asked him why he did so, he replied, "I do so to get under the skin of the character."
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Tabla maestro Ustad Zakir Hussain says, "I was considered for the role of the young Dilip Kumar. But the role was eventually played by Jalal Agha."
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The first full feature-length movie to be revived/colorized for a theatrical re-release in the history of world cinema. It has been done for some Hollywood movies but only for re-release on home video.
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K. Asif initially cast Sapru, Chandramohan and Nargis for the roles of Akbar, Salim and Anarkali.
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With the advent of Jhansi Ki Rani in 1951, colour films became a revolution. K. Asif wanted to remake the whole film in colour, but when the distributors lost patience settled for having two songs and the film's 30-minute climax shot in Technicolor, with the rest of the film (85%) black-and-white. However, in November 2004, the whole movie was restored and colorized in a year-long process by the IAAA (Indian Academy of Arts and Animation) and re-released.
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This was one of only two films K. Asif completed. When he died in 1971, he left behind two unfinished films, Sasta Khoon Mahenga Paani and Love and God, the latter released by K.C. Bokadia in 1986.
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This was (counting Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas) the most expensive film ever made in Indian history. Tailors were brought from Delhi to stitch the costumes, specialists from Surat-Khambayat were employed for the embroidery, Hyderabad goldsmiths made the jewellery, Kohalpur craftsmen designed the crowns, Rajasthan ironsmiths crafted the weapons, and the elaborate footwear was ordered from Agra. For the battle sequence, 2000 camels, 4000 horses and 8000 troops were used, many of them soldiers on loan from the Indian Army. Altogether the film cost Rs. 1.5 crores (38.29 crores in present terms).
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The song "Pyar Kiya To Darna Kiya" has an unusual history to it: it cost Rs. 10 million at a time when a film would be made for less than a million; it was written and re-written 105 times by the lyricist, Shakeel Badayuni, before the music director, Naushad, could approve of it; it was shot in the renowned Sheesh Mahal (Palace of Mirrors); and in those days of sound recording, editing and mixing, as there was no way to provide the reverberation of sound, Naushad had Lata Mangeshkar sing the song in a studio bathroom.
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For the battle sequence, 2,000 camels, 4,000 horses and 8,000 troops were used, many of them soldiers on loan from the Indian Army. This was arranged through special permission through the Indian Ministry of Defence-a rare occurrence today. The soldiers came from the Jaipur regiment of the Indian army.
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The heavy chains Madhubala wore in the film were authentic, not the lightweight models worn in those days. It was her greatest ordeal in the film and she was bedridden for days nursing the bruises caused by wearing those chains.
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The movie was originally shot three times, once each for lips moving for Hindi, Tamil and English dialogs. The Tamil version of the movie did very poorly, so the dream of having Shakespearean actors from Britain doing the dubbing in English was dropped. In 2004, it was announced that after extensive search, no copies of the English version are available.
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